Your absolutely right. I dont mind prequels. But prequels with a purpose. If your going to go back in time to tell a story, at least let that past story have a purpose in a future sequel.

Its like when they went back in time for devil may cry 3. Why? It was retarded. I wanted to see how dante gets out of hell after part 2, not how he used to be a gay skinny lookn bitch who never wore a shirt.

I think metal gear solid 3 did the prequel right. It explained a character that is mentioned in every mgs game as well as gave a reason for the events of mgs 4

DMC3 was the corniest of them all.. it was so cheesy it hurt. I quit devil may cry when dmc3 came out. Dmc 2 story wasnt all that great like dmc1, but at least dante was dark. Dmc3 may have added some nice gameplay, but the story and the character took a major turn for the worst. Bitch Dante. Seems like the developer was trying to attract gay men at the time as a new demographic. lol.

Not to mention the fact that the dmc3 game had no purpose. It wasnt necessary to explain his past to move on to the future. Dmc4 did not reference 3 in anyway. Only go back in time when there is a reason to go back in time.

This is why they are rebooting it. Its cause they killed it when 3 came out.

In the case of movies I don't think they're running out of ideas, it's just new IP's are very risky and to investors it looks a lot better to go with what's safe.

In the case of games I think it comes down to the same thing, however there are generally only so many avenues you can explore with one character or story before things get repetitive, and I think you can agree us gamers are a pretty fickle bunch when it comes to any change to a character or story.

I'm not sure what the problem is, I'll happily play a sequel or prequel so long as the writing holds up. A wash of prequels in the next year or so will bring out a whole load of "how unoriginal" commentaries. Seriously, get a grip.

Yeah I was thinking about this yesterday. They obviously wrapped up the main story with trilogies and since they are unable to advance the story they have to go back because they're not going to create a new IP why would they when the current universe can be dabbled into.

With God of War: Ascension it's obvious they're only making it to save God of War IV for the PS4 whilst giving the fans another God of War experience on the PS3. Also, God of War: Ascension is a great way to introduce more people to God of War franchise because it's the beginning of the story and it's an excellent way for Sony Santa Monica to test the new multiplayer mode to make sure it's perfected in God of War IV.

God of War: Ascension may just be filler until God of War IV arrives on the PS4, but Sony Santa Monica has never released a less than stellar game, so expect God of War: Ascenion to be another award winning masterpiece, it will win multiple GOTY 2013 awards like all the games in the series have.

At what point though is enough, enough? Ascension is the yet another prequel/inbetweener in the GoW franchise. They've picked this bone dry and the inclusion (and seemingly focus) of the multiplayer is really a sign that this is just a case of milking the cash cow.
The only game mentioned here worthy of a prequel is Mass Effect, the discovery of the Citidel, the Keepers, the first contact war between the Turians and the Humans! Shepard's training and backstory, all those things make for a great story that needs to be told properly.
Kratos and his anger problems have been done to death. He's gonna start challenging Ratchet and Clank in the number of SONY games he's appeared in, give him a rest.
Judgement. . .seriously? Just no. The war is over and won. Nobody ever wondered what Baird's back story was and until this game was announced, nobody cared.
I'm glad Naughty Dog decided on a new IP instead of raping a stellar franchise like Uncharted with an unnecessary backstory.
Lets face the truth, this article is under fire because they mentioned one game, I won't say which.

well said and i agree. they are doing the prequel becuase they likely dont know where to go with the sequel. i dont mind prequels but when you have as many as the gow franchise it is a bit ridiculous. i think the real problem is that kratos and his story just arent that interesting anymore, for the first and second and one prequel it was perfect but after that, its just meh.

Who are you to decide what's "unnecessary" as far as a backstory is concerned? Maybe you and I weren't interested in knowing more about the past in Gears, but I'm certain plenty of people were. The same can be said of God of War: just because YOU weren't interested doesn't mean that others weren't.

Don't be so full of yourself.

And it's not exactly a secret which game you mean, since you spent most of your time talking about it.

Actually, Nathans backstory was covered in Uncharted 3. So really, Uncharted can only move forward. Uncharted is like a series or episodes. It can literally go on forever so long as there is new mysterious treasures hidden around the world exist.

Just like the Indiana Jones movies and all the Tomb Raider games....a new interesting story can be made every time.

I agree with you about Gears of War Judgement. I like Baird...but wtf? I would have rather had Marcus or Dom's back story during the pendulum wars.

Kratos is dead to me. That franchise was milked right after the first one ended...and if you saw the ending of the first one you would know exactly what I mean. However the 2nd one was the best and I enjoyed the 3rd. I just love Greek Mythology...but you are right, there is just nothing left to tell about Kratos.

I can guess that you are probably right. They made it because they can and because it's a safe bet for them. You know, I think it's okay for Santa Monica to make 2 games in a series in one generation, especially if they are developing a new IP on the side, and helping tremendously with other Sony projects. The remainder of the numerous GOW releases are down to Sony as a company.

Want to know what though? You'd have to be really negative to think Ascension is not going to be a great game. there's little doubt there. I hope the back story is interesting, but I'm not holding too much hope for that - who knows what they'll do with Kratos? The multiplayer portion does has me intrigued.

What's the point in making prequels to anything really? I mean, I already know what happened in Gears of War and God of War; so how surprising can a prequel be if you already know what's going to happen? Exactly.

I agree with Aeon. I wouldn't mind a Mass Effect prequel at all, as the backstory of the ME galaxy is vast and there are a multitude of interesting stories and time periods Bioware could choose to explore. A critical point to the Mass Effect story is that there would be just as much interest if stories are told from the viewpoint of the Asari, or Turians for example. Why not give gamers the opportunity to play a game or new trilogy in teh ME galaxy as another race other than human? I'm all for that. It's all about the story in games. God of War Ascension and Gears of War prequels I'm not as sure about.

I agree with most of the people here. A prequel is fine if you have an interesting story to tell. It is nice to see a universe expanded by giving insight into a characters life before it became the way it is. Kratos's life was not always this way and knowing how he came to be like this is an interesting story.

I disagree that a prequel necessarily means that you are running out of ideas. Your universe is so vast or your character so complex that it is necessary to go back and show certain things that you knew nothing about the story in the first place. Despite the way the Star Wars prequels turned out I did find out things that I had no idea about before. God of War Ascension is to show everyone once and for all Kratos was not just an angry person all his life and was driven to become what he was.When I read about the the Scandinavian God (Thor, Odin etc.) I already knew everything was going to be destroyed by Ragnarok but that didn't stop me from wanting to know about the things that happened before they all died.Saying hat you already know what is going to happen later doesn't make the interesting things that happened before any less interesting. That is really a weak excuse not to like prequels.

And saying that Mass Effect deserves a prequel more then GOW does just proves the type of bias on this site.I want to see the Kratos before the anger and the rage and could care less about another long drawn out Mass Effect story. Just because Kratos's story wasn't as long and drawn out as ME doesn't make his story any less interesting to tell. Longer doesn't make it better. Some of the best stories told over the years weren't hundreds of pages long. Hercules's story wasn't even half as long as ME story and it was more epic then it.

Prequels can definitely still be worth their 2 cents of pre-history imo.

MGS3 and Portable Ops were fantastic prequels in that they actually made the other stories better. Expanded on new charachters, MGS4 was that much stronger having played MGS3 and Portable Ops and understanding the overall context and flashbacks better. Suddenly Big Boss wasn't just this overblown myth, but the real deal.

Hitman Contracts was almost entirely prequel/flashback missions, including 4 reworked contracts from the first game that console gamers never got to play. Worked in that case, in the whole "life flashing before your eyes" context as 47 bled out.

Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta had their moments too that helped color Kratos' fabled descent into madness. You got to play through him losing Calliope a second time, killing his mother, losing his brother a 2nd time. Even on a superficial set piece level, Kratos sinking Atlantis was a great moment.

1980s Vice City is in essence a prequel to GTA3. You see GTA3 charachters like Donald Love and Phil Cassidy earlier in their lives. Remember in GTA3 how Phil only had one arm? In Vice City he still had two and you play a mission where he loses said arm.